back up media

hi i'm new to this forum stuff so excuse my errors
just did some archive and install on my mac book and in all the info i've read it doesn't include "back up to a flash drive media" -- is there an obvious reason why that would not work ???

'Archive and Install' is not a backup process. It is one of the options for installing a new version of OS X, for example from 10.4/Tiger to 10.5/Leopard.

You've read it....? What is it?

If all you need to backup are just a few files worth of stuff and a flash drive is plenty big enough, while I've never done it, don't know that there's any reason you can't use drag and drop to your flash drive for that purpose.